Are you sure with the tin?
Tin has a relatively low melting temperature compared to other metals.
I guess the problem here might also occur in the relatively unprecise use of the word "tin" in the english language. Often materials are labelled as tin and are in fact something else.

never thought of that. I might look into this ceramic blanket stuff. Though clay and rocks are free, just more work. I'll see what I come up with. I think the tin might be more effective than you guys think. I know a guy that melts metal in a furnace of essentially nested trash cans.

Yes, but they won't last long. Steel easily oxidizes with strong heat, and these "tins" are not very thick. After just a few heatings they will become quite brittle due to oxidation and will start falling to pieces. Also, steel is a better conductor of heat than refractory ceramic materials. The ideal material here would be an insulating refractory. Those "blankets" are perfect for this kind of applications. They can take the strong heats and on top of that they are poor conductors, so they "contain" the heat much better.

Are you sure with the tin?
Tin has a relatively low melting temperature compared to other metals.
I guess the problem here might also occur in the relatively unprecise use of the word "tin" in the english language. Often materials are labelled as tin and are in fact something else.

"For here I'm floating in a tin can" - David Bowie

In this case, "tin" means steel sheet that has been coated with tin or zinc to avoid oxidation.

JDP is right. ceramic blanket is the No 1 choice for insulation. if you buy a big roll of it then the rest may be handy for your kiln. i think mine was about $180 but you yankies always get shit cheaper than us dumbass skippies.

Nice set-up by the way. You may not realise it, but you could dry distill potassium & sodium acetate and begin work in the mineral realm with that equipment.

In an ideal situation with a kettle the size you have filled to the barrel pipe would require constant firing at full throttle with the propane for over 24 hours at or above 750F to get the tars to distill over. I don't think that burner you have will get hot enough to pyrolize the contents of a kettle that big even it is well insulated. The one in the video held 3 pounds volume and reached a max high temp of 750F at the exit pipe as it left the housing for the retort. That required constant tending for more than 18 hours straight.

You could as an experiment pour hot distilled water into your tars then separate the water and see what is in it by distillation in BM.

Thanks guys. Money is a bit tight at the moment, but I have some time tomorrow to let stuff burn. Propane is running short though, so I need to fill up before I start. Not sure if I will really be able to do anything or not, and maybe best to wait until I have the ingredients that I really want, but who knows, I might get bit by a firebug in the morning.

I'll ask about the ceramic insulation next time I'm at the hardware store. I have lots of things to do, so it may come in handy for other things as well.

Any thoughts on my idea about purifying with charcoal? I have some spagyric experiments running finally for this year, and I'm going to give the method a shot with those. I've had another revelation about making my tinctures more alchemical in nature by "opening" the material before maceration, and the operation translates directly to the dry distilling stuff. I'll post separately about that later, but at the very least, I'll decant and filter my mercurial water tomorrow and see what it looks like by itself after soaking in charcoals for a week.

I attempted to use charcoal to remove feces however i bumped into some unwanted effects. It seems that due to the conplex nature of plants the charcoal seems to "React" with the (in my case coriander elixir). It was regrettable and damaged the final product and i wouldnt attempt it again.

Hollandus mentioned egg whites for purifying his sulfurs. I interpreted him to be tricking people and thought he might have been talking about charcoal (basically the dead opposite to egg whites)

It seems i was most likely wrong and maybe he was truely using egg whites. Im not sure i never attempted it.

You have inspired me. I have never considered building a dry distillation vessel out of metal. I think its something i should do. Id like to have large quantities of the "Oils of" series.

Thankyou for the inspiration.

Could you please explain DT; if you want to; how you are going to make your elixir. Ive never made a pyrodistillation medicne because of how messy the work is but im very interested to know how it goes and what the steps your going to take are. Peace

I attempted to use charcoal to remove feces however i bumped into some unwanted effects. It seems that due to the conplex nature of plants the charcoal seems to "React" with the (in my case coriander elixir). It was regrettable and damaged the final product and i wouldnt attempt it again.

Hollandus mentioned egg whites for purifying his sulfurs. I interpreted him to be tricking people and thought he might have been talking about charcoal (basically the dead opposite to egg whites)

It seems i was most likely wrong and maybe he was truely using egg whites. Im not sure i never attempted it.

You have inspired me. I have never considered building a dry distillation vessel out of metal. I think its something i should do. Id like to have large quantities of the "Oils of" series.

Thankyou for the inspiration.

Could you please explain DT; if you want to; how you are going to make your elixir. Ive never made a pyrodistillation medicne because of how messy the work is but im very interested to know how it goes and what the steps your going to take are. Peace

Good time to note that I have no idea at all what I'm doing. hehe. Zero talks about making a matrix quite often, which I assume is one of the two mercuries and the salt. TBH I don't even have an herb yet, but mullein is growing on my path again an I may use that. Plan is to mix one of the products with the salt and set the other attached to it in a double flask like Z's videos and see what happens.
TBH, this new spagyric thing has me preoccupied, so not too much worried about the dry distillation. I think I'm onto the first gate that Z mentions sometimes. Ever had a tincture separate into 3 distinct parts?

I didn't get to spend the time that I wanted out there today, but I did discover that I have a steel (galvanized) trash can that otherwise isn't being used for anything. There was a yellow cress growing in it. It will fit perfectly over the setup, so perhaps I can insulate the outside of that and use it to turn this humble burner into a light-duty kiln for plant work. I also need to pick up a shorter length of pipe.

I don't want to run the can to forging temps, because I know that galvanized steel releases some nasty crap if you get it hot enough. Hopefully it will work for this though until I build something more permanent. If it turns green then we have problems, I learned a thing or two from an old blacksmith down south. We used to run that kind of steel until all the fumes came off while working away from the shop area, but that was near burning temp for thin steel.

I brought back some of the "white wine" in a flask. Is it supposed to be a reddish color? The red oil leftover was too thick and not enough to bother collecting, so I left it in the pickle jar. I might try some solvent tests to see what the white wine will effect on chert. When I decanted it from the charcoal feces it came over as one substance, without any settling out or layering, but it is quite dark.